Libraries as Organic 3rd Spaces: Meeting the Community Where it's at with Civic Technology.

Libraries as Organic 3rd Spaces: Meeting the Community Where it's at with Civic Technology.

Local governments like Hennepin County are increasingly seeing the value of civic technology and open data to bring communities together to solve problems and create breakthrough solutions to public service challenges. As established third spaces, libraries bring together individuals from across our many and diverse communities every day, creating a comfortable, familiar place to "meet the community where it's at," during hackathons, codeathons, open data and service design jams. During this session we'll discuss civic technology and how open data forms the foundation for the burgeoning civic tech movement, how local governments are seizing the opportunity civic tech presents to create genuine connections to community and co-produce solutions to sticky public sector challenges, how libraries serve as community third spaces and what it means from an operational standpoint for a library to serve as the locus of community creativity experiences.